Trust In Allah (but tie up your camel)

What a night with an Amazonian shaman taught me about the dance between surrender and scepticism

Last night, as I sat face-to-face with an Amazonian shaman wielding a pipe of sacred tobacco, I confronted an important question about trust:

How do we navigate between scepticism and surrender?

Over many generations, the Huni Kuin, indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest, have cultivated a profound trust in nature's intelligence. They see themselves as "guardians of the forest" and believe there is a deep intelligence in nature that humans ignore at our peril. They've developed healing practices using plants that most of us in the Western world have forgotten how to listen to. Their ceremonies invite participants into a space of deep surrender to natural wisdom.

But as I sat before the shaman, presented with three levels of intensity for the ceremonial snuff (‘Rapéh’) - from 'plodding turtle' to ‘galloping deer’ to 'blow your brains out' - my mind began its familiar dance. Part of me yearned to trust completely, to surrender to this ancient wisdom. Another part was putting up a shield of scepticism, questioning whether this was any different from any other religious ritual. More specifically, what level should I go for?! Here is a sample of my internal dialogue:

“Go for deer, it sounds like a good middle option, not too soft not too hard.”
"But what if I go for deer, and don’t get the medicine I need?”
”But if I go for blow my brains out, what if my brains are like actually blown out?”

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest until eventually I settled on a compromise - I would ask for a ‘strong galloping deer’. The shaman loaded the pipe, which I then held in my nostril as he said a blessing and blew the Rapéh right up into my soul. Instantly, my eyes began to water, I felt a bit sick, and when I had received the Rapéh in my other nostril I crawled back to my seat, feeling a mixture of intense heat and intense cold, as well as the not so pleasant sensation of the Rapéh coming down the back of my throat.

As I sat with these intense physical sensations, I noticed my mind was still playing the same game - part of me trying to surrender to the healing experience, part of me analyzing whether this was doing anything good for me at all. This dance between trust and scepticism is becoming familiar to me - it's the same tension I feel when meeting a new therapist or trying a new health fad - is this the real life, or is this just fantasy?

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When I returned home after the ceremony, I stumbled across (aka the Youtube algorithm showed me) an Alan Watts talk about trusting the universe. The timing felt significant - here I was, fresh from an indigenous ceremony, listening to a Western interpreter of Eastern philosophy talk about surrender and trust. In particular, something he said about how we make decisions really landed with me:

“When we decide, we're always worrying ‘did I think this over long enough? Did I take enough data into consideration?’ And if you think it through, you find you never could take enough data into consideration, because the data for a decision in any given situation is infinite, so what you do is you go through the motions of thinking out what you will do about this, and then when the time comes to act you make a snap judgment.”

It's true, isn't it? Perfect information does not exist. Whether choosing 'galloping deer' or 'blow your brains out,' we must ultimately surrender to something higher than ourselves, to the unknown. Watts went on to speak about trust in relation to sleep. “The more you relinquish power and trust,” he said, “the more powerful you become. Instead of lying awake at night trying to control everything, you can trust your nervous system to wake you up in the morning.” As a creature who has struggled with sleep for years, this note struck a chord. How often had my attempts to control sleep only pushed it further away?

But the next morning, I woke up feeling different - more present, more embodied. Not because I'd managed to silence my sceptical mind or achieve some perfect state of trust (and I still woke up in the middle of the night) but perhaps because I'd allowed both parts of myself to coexist: the part that wants to surrender and the part that doubts everything. (And maybe, just maybe, the wisdom of the Rapéh was quietly working its way into my system).

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My experience with the shaman reflects a broader tension in how we approach healing and wellbeing today. We're living in a time where trust in traditional institutions continues to erode, while alternative perspectives are increasingly entering mainstream discourse. The most radical example of this is Donald Trump’s appointment of Robert Kennedy Jr (RFK) as Health Secretary - RFK is an anti-vaxxer who believes health institutions, the pharmaceutical industry and regulatory bodies are corrupt and have a perverse incentive to keep us sick and dependent on their goods and services.

In an era of information overload, we're bombarded with competing advice about mental health, healing, and wellbeing. Should we trust traditional therapies or try alternative approaches? Stick with conventional medicine or explore holistic treatments? Trust our instincts or follow the latest research? The sheer volume of options can leave us paralyzed, our trust fractured by too many choices.

Many of us have been burned before - by ineffective treatments, by practitioners who didn't understand us, by quick-fix solutions that didn't last. It's natural to become sceptical, to build walls around our trust. Yet this very protection can become a barrier to our healing.

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This dance between trust and doubt reveals itself so clearly in the placebo effect, where our beliefs and expectations literally shape our biology. When we trust that something will help us heal, our bodies often respond accordingly.

This has been demonstrated most remarkably in 'open-label placebo' studies, where patients show significant improvement even when they know they're taking sugar pills. A landmark 2010 Harvard Medical School study found that IBS patients showed significant improvement in symptoms even though they were given placebos - and even though they were told explicitly they were receiving 'sugar pills' with no active ingredients. Importantly, they were also told that placebos can have powerful effects through mind-body self-healing processes. Since then, study after study has confirmed this remarkable finding: sugar pills worked even when patients knew they were sugar pills. Back pain, depression, ADHD - all responded to placebos given with complete honesty about their nature.

Like a Derren Brown magic show that enchants even as it reveals its secrets, healing doesn't require deception. When we understand how our minds can unlock our body's inner pharmacy, awareness doesn't break the spell - it deepens it.

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Now, I have to be honest with you: knowing about the power of trust does not automatically get rid of the doubting parts of us, nor should it. Doubt is our soft outer shell - a portable shelter in which we can hide from a world of hurt, disappointment and betrayal. We carry this shell not because we are weak, but because we have loved and lost, because our hearts have broken open. The problem is that this shell gets tougher, can turn from a shelter into a prison, encasing us in our own doubting minds - a solipsistic world devoid of magic or deep connection.

There is an old Sufi saying that cuts through the false binary between blind faith and rigid scepticism: 'Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.' The universe doesn't always have our back; not every moment of suffering transforms into grace. Our camels need protection - but a simple rope will do, no electric fence required.

What if we approached these opposing forces with more flexibility? Instead of getting stuck in either extreme, we might learn to dance between them - knowing when to clutch tight and when to let go. We can have the proverbial healthy dose of scepticism (no more than that!) whilst creating an inner environment conducive to the open-label placebo effect - in other words, being open to wisdom, healing, and (dare I say it) enlightenment experiences that come in unexpected forms - whether that's from an Amazonian shaman, an Eastern philosopher, our body's natural intelligence, or the postman. Like adjusting a camera's aperture, we can narrow our focus for protection or open wide to let in light.

So next time you (metaphorically speaking) have a metre-long pipe inserted up your nostril, when you are faced with a false binary choice between total surrender and a plodding turtle, remember that you are the cameraman, you can choose when to narrow the frame to protect what is precious and when to open and let the light flood in.

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If this article tickled your heart at all, then do consider becoming a paid subscriber for the price of a tub of peanut butter each month. I have recorded a meditation based on this week’s articl that will deepen your ability to flex between surrender and discernment, which you will get access to as a paid member, plus you get access to live events and group meditations, and a chance to meet other human beings with hearts who are exploring this mad and beautiful world with grace.